Tussle over quality leaves cautious hemophiliacs craving for factors

SRINAGAR: The hemophilia patients at SMHS hospital here are once again facing problems because of the approach of the authori¬ties at the Jammu and Kashmir Medical Supplies Corporation Limited (JKMSCL).
The corporation, which has started purchasing medicines for the hospitals, is not providing the certificate of quality to hemophil-ia drugs to be made available to the hemophiliacs at the hospital. And the patients are reluctant to take the drugs that do not carry the stamp of quality.
Amir Wani, a hemophilia patient from Banihal, has been waiting for the factors for the past 15 days. And in absence of the medicines, he has become bed ridden, unable to even walk up to the washroom with his swollen limbs.
Wani desperately needs fac¬tor-8 injection, which the Hemo¬philia Centre of the SMHS hos¬pital is running short of.
“For the last 15 days, they have been telling me that the factor will arrive, but it hasn’t happened till date,” he said.
“They have putting me on Fresh Frozen Plasma, but that doesn’t relieve me of the pain. There have been instances of patients developing hepatitis because of the plasma, which was extracted from the improp¬erly-screened blood samples,” Wani said.
In February this year, the corporation supplied a drug manufactured by two pharma¬ceutical giants to hemophilia patients, but it caused complica¬tions in the patients.
“In the past 4-5 years since we were put on the factor, we never got any adverse reaction. The reason is that we were us¬ing the drugs from a registered company,” Adil, president of the Hemophilia Society, said.
“They were telling us that they are short of money and unable to buy the drugs. But we met the commissioner sec¬retary health, and he showed me that Rs 50 lakh have been released for our drugs,” he said.
On May 20, the patients moved an application to the commissioner secretary health, who heads the JKMSCL, and principal Government Medical College for help.
“The authorities at the JKM¬SCL are procuring the same sub¬standard drug for us, but we won’t use it at any cost. And we have communicated it to the commis¬sioner secretary. Why are they hesitating in giving the quality certificate, unless there is noth¬ing fishy about it,” Adil said.
The commissioner secretary health, M K Bandari, and prin¬cipal GMC were not available for comments.

Shafaq Shah is a reporter working with Kashmir Reader Newspaper. She has been contributing stories for the newspaper specially on Health. She also has a keen interest in politics,Business and Technology.
Prior to joining Kashmir Reader, she was an intern at The Indian Express and had contributed for a brief time for Greater Kashmir and Authint Mail.

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Launched in May 2012, Kashmir Reader is one of the leading English language newspapers of Jammu and Kashmir. It’s published daily from Srinagar by Helpline Group, which earned a name and fame in serious journalism